Reggio Emilia

agrarian elites from the parliamentary Republic, but does not allow one to fit responsibility for the Republic's demise and the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship into any of the simplified theories of the far right or far left which still circulate today. Although several German industrialists supported Hitler before January 1933, German big business, in general, divided its financial gifts between the Deutsche Volkspartei and the Deutschnationale Volkspartei, and gave much less to Hitler because it feared socialist experiments from a Nazi regime. East Elbian Junkers stirred up the opposition of small holders to the Republic because it had failed to provide them with security in a world swimming in surplus agricultural production. The East Elbian agrarians were, however, too weakened financially and politically to exercise decisive influence in a heavily industrialized society. The Social Democratic Party lost some of its popularity among workers by "tolerating" Bruning's emergency decrees, but its biggest mistake was that it did not have a real alternative to the stringent social and economic measures which Bruning applied by means of these decrees. Germany's craftsmen, shopkeepers and their white-collar employees were early supporters of Hitler, and, in combination with small farmers, were the largest and most enthusaistic block in the Nazi electorate. The specialized topics and esoteric discussions that were covered during the symposium held at Bochum evoked a surprising amount of public interest. A thirty-minute program on regional television dealt with the symposium two days after its conclusion. A one-hour radio program on August 20 explored some of the results of the conference. —Robert A. Gates Ohio State University